How to Choose the Best Cheap Android Tablet within Your Budget
Tablets are great devices for active and busy people. It’s a convenient device to carry with you and if you’re a business person, it can make working on the road a lot more pleasant than simply using your smartphone. However, buying a tablet isn’t necessarily easy, as you have so many options available. It can be even trickier if you are working with a specific budget – you want to make sure you get the best tablet money can buy.
They help you out, here are some tips on how to choose the best Android tablet within your budget.
Set your budget
You must start your tablet hunt by setting yourself a budget. It’s important you look at the bank account and think carefully how much you are able to and willing to spend on the new device.
In terms of the pricing, there are different things that affect the price tag. The screen size, configuration, battery and brand are just some of the things that can increase or decrease the price. However, as a rule of thumb, it’s good to know that a cheap tablet costs anything from $100 to $150, while a higher-performing tablet will generally cost around $300 to $500. Anything beyond that will be a super performing tablet – often almost like a laptop in terms of performance.
Pick your chosen screen size and screen resolution
So, let’s start by looking at the some of the elements you need to consider and which will also impact the price. One of the first things you need to think is the screen size. Tablets can be as small as 6-inch or as big as 12-inch. The bigger your device’s screen, the more it will cost. If you are using the tablet just to browse the Internet, chatting with friends, reading books and so on, a 7 to 8-inch tablet will be sufficient. If you are looking to spend a lot of time working or playing games on the tablet, you probably want something above 10-inch.
You should also consider the screen resolution and what you need from it. Again, if you are working on the tablet and you work with images, you definitely require as good resolution as you can get. In general, a 1280x800 pixel is a decent resolution but if you just need the tablet for occasional use, you can find cheaper models with fewer pixels.
Think about the performance and tablet configuration
Configuration refers to the hardware on the tablet and this is important in terms of performance and price. If you want something cheap, then Octa-Core or Mediatek processor with around 1 to 2GB of RAM will probably be the best configuration for you. Anything beyond these will cost a bit more but will also help your tablet perform better. In terms of storage, an 8GB storage is cheap but it can be rather laggy. You can improve it with an external SD card. If you don’t want to buy an SD card, you should have at least 16GB of internal storage.
Pick the extra functions you need
Of course, tablets come with additional features. The two main features that will impact the price are the camera and the speakers. You need to carefully consider how important these functions are to you. If you think you won’t take many photos with your tablet, then you shouldn’t waste money on a good camera.
If you are going to listen to a lot of music on your tablet or watch movies on it, you want to get a tablet with good quality speakers. The good news is that most of today’s tablets actually come with two built-in speakers, which enhances the quality of sound. Unless you are buying a super cheap tablet, the sound quality should be sufficient without you having to pay a lot of extra.
Consider the different brands
Perhaps the biggest influencing factor in terms of the price is the brand. You can now find thousands of tablet models from hundreds of brands and some of them cost a lot more than others. The top manufacturers with the priciest tablets come from brands like Samsung, Lenovo, Acer and ASUS.
If you want to find something cheaper but with a decent configuration, you might want to consider opting for a Chinese brand. Chinese tablets are becoming much better in term of configuration and performance with affordable prices. Chuwi or Tablet Express are some of the cheaper Chinese models to keep in mind.
Look for discounts
Now, just because a tablet has a specific price tag attached to it, it doesn’t mean it necessarily will cost you this much. Indeed, retailers are always offering discounts and these can help you cut down the price further. So, before you buy a tablet always check if you can find a higher performing model for the same price with the help of discount codes.
When it comes to finding the best cheap Android tablet, these tips will help you shop within your budget.
How to Prepare Screenshots For Your Posts
Hello everyone, I hope you all are doing great and having fun with your lives. Today, I am going to share a really cool tool with you guys and we will have a look at How to Prepare Screenshots For Your Posts with that tool, and it helped me a lot in my own blog posts and I am sharing it because engineers need to design their images for presentations, report etc. So, must have these tools with you so that you can make your tasks relatively easy. Moreover, if you are a blogger then it also comes in handy.
Accompanying your posts with screenshots can help to provide context, clarification or even just improve the aesthetics of the post. While it is easy enough to capture screenshots, before you include any in your posts it would be a good idea to prepare them beforehand. In order to prepare your screenshots, you should use a photo editor such as Movavi Photo Editor. It will allow you to tweak your photos in several ways, and prepare them by:
How to Prepare Screenshots For Your Posts
So, let's have a look at these steps one by one using which you prepare Screenshots for your Posts:
- Cropping and altering the frame
Sometimes you will want to crop your screenshots to alter the area of your screen that is displayed and how the elements are being framed. With Movavi Photo Editor you can easily crop out any parts of your screenshots, and also rotate, flip, or level them if need be.
- Improving the image quality
Generally, you shouldn’t have any problem with the quality of your screenshots, but if you do it helps to be able to improve it. Within Movavi Photo Editor you can choose to either adjust the color settings manually or use the automated features to do so.
- Removing unwanted elements
If there are any unwanted elements in your screenshot, you should remove them to make the screenshot less cluttered and emphasize the main elements more. That can be done easily with Movavi Photo Editor, and you can even replace the entire background if need be.
- Resizing screenshots to fit your posts
The size of your screenshots matters quite a bit, both because they will determine the file size of the image and as they should fit within a particular area in your post. Using Movavi Photo Editor you can quickly alter the size of your photo according to your needs, and may even want to come up with several different sizes if your website is responsive.
- Adding captions or titles
Including captions or titles in the screenshots that you publish can help to add information directly to them. Whether add text to photo to label elements, provide context, or even just explain the screenshot is up to you and Movavi Photo Editor will let you customize the text and make it look unique. Here's an example:
Make no mistake that is by no means all that Movavi Photo Editor is capable of, and if you explore its features further you’ll find that you’re able to apply artistic filters, utilize digital makeup, fix blurry images, and much more. All in all, however, you should now know what you need to do to prepare your screenshots for a post and because of how easy Movavi Photo Editor is to use, you should have no problem getting started and applying its features to the task at hand.
Unsung Heroes of Engineering Companies in USA
Hello everyone, I hope you all are doing great. Today, I am going to share a very simple tutorial named Unsung Heroes of Engineering Companies in the USA. From time to time, daring engineers take up projects which are at face value, impossible. However, with much persistence and planning, their efforts pay off and the world is granted splendid structures. Unfortunately, some of these great people never get any recognition for their work. This article looks at unsung heroes of engineering companies in the USA:
Frank Julian Sprague (General Electric)
Sprague was never an employee of General Electric, but his contribution to the invention of the electric motor was quite significant, to the extent that he fought to have Edison’s Medal of Honor changed so that his contribution could not be overrated.
He left to focus on his innovation, the electric motor. He successfully installed it in several elevators in buildings. A year or so after Edison’s motor’s which he had co-created began to sell exponentially, Sprague’s company was bought out by General Electric, and his name faded.
Marcin Mostafa and Natalia Paszkowska (Buro Happold)
These two people are affiliated with Buro Happold, one of the biggest engineering firms in the world with over 20 locations globally, including the USA. These two people enrolled for the Shanghai Expo in 2010 where they came up with the Polish Pavilion.
The design was inspired by folk art paper patterns in the Polish culture. The duo created a modern version of the art which became part of the building’s external structure. Better still; the building does not have any perpendicular walls. All the walls are slanted.
Since Marcin and his partner Natalia were quite young, after winning the competition, they chose Buro Happold to actually bring their design to life. Marcin and Natalia are still architects today under their Polish architectural studio, WWAA.
Pelli Clark Pelli and Thornton Tomasetti
It is extremely difficult to point to a single individual in these two companies. These two firms came together to create the popular Brookfield Place Entry Pavilion. The latter did the architecture part, while the former did the building. Better still, Thornton Tomasetti has carried out many other successful engineering projects all around the world like the signature tower in Malaysia, the Shanghai Tower in China, and the Metrorrey Light Rail.
Most notably, this company has been involved in the investigation of several national tragedies like the 9/11 attack on the world trade center. They not only conducted the investigations but helped to clear debris. They also investigated the collapse of the Interstate Highway 35 West Bridge. Maybe their great company culture where no one owns more than 8% of the shares also has to do with their success.
They were the first to use the nylon lens-shaped inflatable roof that is still used today. Cesar Pelli, the founder of Pelli Clark Pelli, has been ranked among the 10 best living architects in America.
All in all
The above individuals and companies indeed deserve to be recognized more. Unfortunately, they are not among the famous names associated with big achievements in engineering.
Despite this, their contribution has been very significant in the field and they cannot be looked down upon. Other companies should join this list of unsung heroes who have made contributions in fields such as trench shoring and molding.
The former is based on a breakthrough discovery: slide rails, a technology that reduced shoring costs by 40%. The latter has affiliate companies in stamping tools and die tooling to ensure the best quality in metal stamping, molding and assembly solutions.
Indeed, sometimes the best innovations and service delivery in the industry is done by the person or company that does not receive the recognition, yet their mark is left on earth for a very long time.
The Practical Guide for Tech Entrepreneurs
Even the best tech entrepreneurs have made mistakes while working their way to the top. Many of the past and present entrepreneurs have difficulty making their businesses succeed. It is a rough world for beginners. It is hard to succeed when a person does not know how to grow their business and make a financial gain. The Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs has been written to assist other entrepreneurs. It teaches the steps of what to do and what not to do as a beginner. The guide answers a lot of questions that tech startup has. They are informative and knowledgeable in the steps to take to make a business excel. The valuable information can impact their tech business and help it financially grow into something bigger. The entrepreneur guide has important information that should be followed and examples of decisions to stay away from.
Start at The Beginning
A tech entrepreneur should start with getting your office or space ready to conduct business. Get the area ready and supplies set up for a tech business. It is very important to always find ways to lessen your business cost. From office supplies to technology, find discount deals from different shops that offer promo codes such as Currys and Sprint. Also, find team members who want to work with you. If you need other items such as the internet, then this would be the time to purchase them. It is important to be prepared and educated on what to expect next. The guide explains these and many other pieces of information about how to begin as a tech entrepreneur.
Capital Gain and Finances
The Practical Guide for Tech Entrepreneurs discusses how to get financial assistance and capital gain. Financial stability is important to understand for a tech startup. A business that has money to create more business, is a surviving company. There are businesses that had begun as tech entrepreneurs. These companies have risen above and created a huge name for themselves.
Knowledge of Surroundings
A tech entrepreneur needs to know the surroundings. Being able to recognize bad deals is important. It is a good idea to say no to a bad investment or proposition. If you feel that your surroundings are not improving, then it is time to get out. If at some point, you need to get out from under the company, then it is best to take the time to do some research. Find out who would be the best buyer and ensure that the team is taken care of. The guide explains how to make a decision that works well for everyone involved.
Lead by Example
A tech entrepreneur can review the companies that have succeeded and grown their companies and brands. These companies are great resources. The entrepreneurs can learn and study the way these companies had conducted business and overcome the challenges to excel in the industry.
A tech entrepreneur will benefit from the guide because of the valuable and educational information. There are many wonderful tips and suggestions to help people in the tech world to succeed. It also teaches the mistakes to avoid and ways to improve from those bad choices.
Evolution of Capacitors
Hello everyone, I hope you all are fine and having fun with your lives. Today's topic is about the Evolution of Capacitors and I have tried my best to explore all about Capacitors. A Capacitor is one of the passive elements. It is a two-terminal electrical component. It stores energy in the form of an electric field. The physical appearance of the practical capacitors varies depending upon their usages. The basic capacitor has two electrical conductors that are separated by a dielectric. The material used in electrical conductors is a conductive electrolyte, thin films, sintered beads of metal and thin foils. And, the material used in the dielectric is plastic, glass, ceramic, Vacuum, mica, paper, oxide layers, etc. A capacitor is also called a condenser. Capacitor mainly depends upon the area of the plates, the distance of the plates and characteristics of dielectric between two plates and it uses in many electronics and electrical projects.
What is a Capacitor?
It is defined as the ratio of the electric charge Q to the potential difference V.
C = Q / V
The capacitance of a capacitor is measured in units called
Farads. A capacitor is said to have one Farad of capacitance only if the capacitor can hold one ampere per second of electrons at one volt at a rate of one coulomb of electrons per second.
The Evolution of Capacitors
The evolution of capacitors took place in an interesting way. In the 6
th century, a Greek scientist ‘Thales of Mileus’ rubbed amber with animal fur. The amber acquired the ability to pick up small bits of material. After several thousands of years have passed (in the 18
th century) many changes took place. Von Kleist built the first practical capacitor. He took a medical bottle and filled it partly with water, and then sealed it well with a cork. Later he pushed a nail through the cork into the water. Next, the nail was made to contact with the electrostatic machine, this produced some charge. When Von Kleist was about to touch the nail, he felt the separated charges were able to reunite by flowing through his own body.
One of the famous experiments was Leyden Jar. Van Musschenbroek conducted an experiment that can be said as the first capacitor. His experiment was almost similar to Von Kleist’s one; however, he just removed water from the bottle and used metallic foil to wrap both inside and outside of the jar. There was a metal chain that was driven through the cork on the top of the jar. This chain was hooked with something that would produce the charge. The moment charge was delivered, the jar would hold two equal but opposite charges in equilibrium until they were connected with a wire slightly producing either spark or shock.
Leyden Jar
A scientist named Daniel Gralath was the first to combine several jars in parallel to form a battery.
Jars In Parallel
This experiment went on to another step ahead of the conclusion given by a great scientist Benjamin Franklin. He told that the charge was stored in the glass, not in the water. So, this made him replace with a dielectric sheet-like oiled paper sandwiched in between the sheets of metal foils which were rolled or folded into a small package.
Finally, the experiment took good shape when Michel Faraday added his contribution. He came up with the concept of a dielectric constant. He not only invented the first practical fixed capacitor and variable capacitor, but also the first usable capacitor which was made from large oil barrels.
Symbols Of Different Capacitors
- Symbols and Practical Diodes in the Real-Time Applications:
Capacitor Polarity:
Capacitors are measured in the units Farad. Most of the values are in micro Farad. Microfarad is one-millionth of a Farad. The PicoFarad is one-millionth of a Micro Farad. It is used in radio works. The Pico Farad capacitor size is larger than the Micro Farad capacitor. Some of the capacitors are unpolarized like resistors. They can be placed in either way in a circuit. Electrolytic Capacitors have anode and cathode that need to be placed in a particular direction. Electrolytic capacitors evaporate after 2000 hours at 105 degrees Celsius.
Construction of a Capacitor
- The basic model of the capacitor is made of two plate metals which are separated by a dielectric material.
- From this basic concept of construction, capacitors have evolved into many different models of construction.
.
Construction Of Capacitor
- Real capacitors are made by taking thin strips of metal foil and dielectric material and then sandwiching them together.
Capacitor With Foil
- In an Aluminum Electrolyte Capacitor, there is an aluminum foil, an electrolyte and porous paper.
Aluminum Capacitor
- In ceramic capacitors, ceramic acts as a dielectric material.
Ceramic Capacitor
- In the air capacitors, the air is used as a dielectric medium. In the future, owing to advanced technology capacitors will be made by using different kinds of dielectric material that make them simple, multipurpose and also economical.
Air Capacitor
Capacitor’s Working Principle
A capacitor in a given supply, current starts flowing into the capacitor. The charge gets struck on both plates as they are separated by a dielectric medium. The electrons that are negatively charged particles are on one of the plates; this makes the plate negatively charged. This large mass of negative charges repels with the like charges on the other plate making it positively charged.
Now, these negative and positive charges get attracted to each other which creates an electric field in between the plates as they are being separated by an insulating material. This phenomenon is just like storing energy in a battery.
Working Of Capacitor
The positive and negative charges try to approach together to form one whole mass on the capacitor plates, the capacitor becomes charged. A capacitor has the ability to retain its electric field; this is because both positive charge and negative charge attract each other, but never reach each other. At the saturation point, capacitor plates are fully charged and cannot accept any more charges. This stage is called as the capacitance of the capacitor.
Polarized Capacitor
Polarized Capacitor is also called electrolytic capacitors. It is used in DC applications, higher leakage current, small size capacitors, low-frequency response and high capacitance. It acts as a short circuit when connected in the wrong way. These capacitors are mainly applicable in regulating voltage fitting and smoothing decoupling of power supply.
Polarised Capacitor
Non-Polarized Capacitor
A non-Polarized Capacitor is used in AC applications. When two identical polarized capacitors are connected back to back with one of them in reverse, then they act as a non-polarized capacitor with only half of its capacitance. But this has an only low frequency. If one is in need of high frequency, then a non-polarized capacitor has to be used. It is used in loudspeakers.
Non-Polarised Capacitor
Different Types Of Capacitors
Electrolytic Capacitor
Electrolytic capacitors are polarized capacitors that have anode and cathode. They use a high dielectric constant of the aluminum oxide layer on the plates of the capacitor. This is greater than normal dielectric material.
Construction of Electrolytic Capacitors
The basic capacitor has two plates and one dielectric material. In an electrolytic capacitor, two plates and foils are slightly different. One of the plates is coated with an oxide layer and the paper is soaked in the electrolyte which is placed in between the plates. The foil insulated with an oxide layer is the anode. The thickness of the anode oxide is a thin film. The second foil acts as a cathode. This has to be packaged together and form a cylinder. Now, this is placed in an aluminum can to protect it from external force. While manufacturing the electrolytic capacitor, it is necessary to use high purity foil of anode. The general thickness would be 20µm and 50µm.
Electrolytic Capacitor
It is mainly used in military and space applications, and also in devices requiring very low leakage currents or in long-life characteristics and also to generate high temperatures up to 125 °C.
Ceramic Capacitor
Ceramic capacitors are of fixed values, which cannot be varied. In this capacitor, ceramic acts as the dielectric and two electrodes have it at their extreme ends.
Ceramic capacitors are available in three main types
- Surface Mounted Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors
- Lead Disc Ceramic Capacitor
- Specialist Microwave Bare Leadless Disc Ceramic Capacitor
Ceramic capacitors are available in smaller ratings, typically between 1nF and 1µF, although values up to 100µF are possible. These are small in size and have low-rated voltage. It is a non-polarized capacitor and can be connected to an AC source.
Construction Of Ceramic Capacitor
Ceramic capacitors are made up of fine ground granules of par electric or ferroelectric materials. These are mixed in such a way to get desired characteristics. The manufacture coats them with ceramic discs and uses silver contacts on both sides. To get large capacitance, these devices are made up of multiple layers.
Ceramic Capacitor Construction
Applications of Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors include Consumer electronics, data processing, hard disks, video cameras, DVDs, mobile phones, general electronic circuits and telecommunications.
Variable Capacitor
Variable capacitors are obtained in both mechanical and electrical ways. They are mostly used in L/C circuits to set the resonance circuits. The variable capacitors are used in Radio, Television, etc.
Variable Capacitor
Capacitors are used:
- To block the flow of DC and permit AC
- To couple the sections
- To send desired signals to any sections
- For phase shifting
- For creating delay time
- In grounding the undesired frequencies
- In motor starter
- To filter the ripples in a rectifier circuit and waveforms
Applications of Capacitor
- Capacitor as a Filter: The capacitor is of low pass filter and high pass filter. The reactance of the capacitor is inversely proportional to the frequency. So, we can decrease or increase any circuit at a certain frequency.
- Capacitor as a Discharge Unit: Capacitor has the property of charging and discharging. This application can be used for triggering, ignition and triggering for high scale power sources.
- Snubber Capacitors: It is used to limit the high voltage transient across the circuits.
Thus, this is all about evolution and different types of capacitors. It is used in smooth power supply, audio frequency coupling, in RF coupling capacitor applications and in tunes circuits.
Engineering Projects
Hello friends, I hope you are fine and doing great in your lives. Today, I am not going to write an article or a tutorial, rather I am going to tell you about different engineering projects that I have worked on. If I am talking about engineering projects then it means a variety of different kind of projects. These projects may include microcontroller based projects with Arduino, 8051 or pic, 555 timer based projects, Matlab projects, LabVIEW projects, Proteus projects and a lot more.
In this article, I am going to share some of the very interesting projects from my list. If you are an engineering student or someone who loves to work on engineering projects, then you can definitely start from here. The first ones that I am discussing with you are Arduino projects.
Arduino Based Engineering Projects
The most commonly used microcontroller is Arduino. It is widely used in embedded systems and also in classrooms for teaching purposes. The main features of Arduino are:
- Digital input and output pins
- Analog pins
- PWM pins
- ICSP connector
- Quartz crystal
- USB connection
- Reset button
- Open source software
- Build in voltage regulation
- Easy to use
- Cheap
I have posted a lot of stuff on Arduino. You can find tutorials on how to use Arduino, Arduino basics, libraries and all my projects here Arduino Projects. Now let’s get started with Arduino based engineering projects. The first one is for displaying atmospheric temperature on LCD.
1. How to use Temperature Sensor 18B20 with Arduino in Proteus ISIS?
- Using temperature sensor with microcontroller is a very popular project with engineering students.
- A variety of temperature sensors are available that you can interface with microcontroller for monitoring temperature.
- I have used sensor 18B20 with Arduino which is most commonly used sensor and gives accurate value. It is very efficient and easy to use as it has only one wire.
- I have interfaced this sensor with microcontroller and displayed the result that is atmospheric temperature on an LCD.
- You can find the tutorial for this project here How to use Temperature Sensor 18B20 with Arduino in Proteus ISIS? The libraries that you will need for this project are listed here which you can download also. I have provided all of the details about components, code for your microcontroller and simulation in this tutorial.
2. Interfacing of Seven Segment with Arduino in Proteus
- The second project is interfacing of seven segment display. This project is also very helpful for you as seven segment display can be used with different engineering projects. For example in clocks, counters, stop watches etc.
- In this project, I have interfaced seven segment display with Arduino to show different characters. The whole project is simulated on Proteus.
- For the project you need to have Arduino library and seven segment display library which you can download from our website. This tutorial can be found here Interfacing of Seven Segment With Arduino in Proteus.
3. Arduino Bluetooth communication using HC-05
- Bluetooth communication is very interesting thig to do which covers this project.
- In this project, I have used Arduino to communicate data to mobile phone.
- The Bluetooth module used in this project is HC-05 which is a serial module.
- You can find the complete description of this project here Arduino Bluetooth communication using HC-05.
- I have also provided the details of all components and code for your project.
4. Intelligent Energy Saving System
- From the name you must have guessed that this project is going to help you in reducing the energy consumption.
- The project is designed for a room but can be extended to house. Also this project is a part of home automation system.
- IR sensors are used for detecting presence of person in room, and a bulb and a fan are considered as a load that are being monitored by this system.
- For getting display, an LCD is also attached.
- You can find this project here Intelligent Energy Saving System. All the component details, circuit diagrams and code are given there.
5. Traffic Signal Control Project Using Arduino
- Controlling traffic signals is a very popular project among students. It’s a god project for beginners, so I am adding it up here.
- This projects involves controlling lights at fixed time intervals.
- You can find further details and code on this project in the following link Traffic Signal Control Project Using Arduino.
6. Control Servo Motor with Arduino in Proteus
- If you are working on robotics, then you must need to control servo motors. Other than robotics, servo motors have wide applications where you need precise angular motion.
- In this project, I have controlled a servo motor using Arduino and simulated it on Proteus.
- Also, I have added push buttons so that we can move servo motor to some desired position.
- You can find the project here Control Servo Motor with Arduino in Proteus. This very simple and easy project but very useful for adding in other projects.
7. EasyVR Shield with Arduino
PIC Microcontroller based Engineering Projects
Pic microcontroller is also used widely for engineering projects. It is a microcontroller family from Microchip Technology. Just like other microcontrollers it has RAM, ROM, counters, timers, ADC and DAC converters etc. Some of the characteristic features of this microcontroller are:
- Uses Harvard architecture
- Ease of programming
- Easy interfacing
- Supports RISC
- Low power consumption
- Wide availability
- Fast processing
If you want the complete list of our pic microcontroller projects along with all the tutorials on basics than you can follow this article PIC Microcontroller Projects. Now I am going to share some of the projects here.
1. Electronic Door Lock using PIC Microcontroller
- This is a project in which I have designed an electronic door lock. This project can be a module of home automation system or home security system.
- The project can be installed on the main gate of the house. Anybody who wants to come in has to enter a password. If someone tries to enter the house using a wrong password then a buzzer gets on and aware the family members.
- Pic18f452 is used in this project. I have used solenoid for locking purpose, a serial terminal for communication medium and EEPROM for saving password.
- The complete details, code and simulation can be found here Electronic Door Lock using PIC Microcontroller.
2. Display ADC value on LCD using PIC Microcontroller
- In this project, I have displayed the values from Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) of pic microcontroller to an LCD.
- LCDs are used in a variety of engineering projects so this project could be very helpful to you.
- To get analog values for ADC, I have used current transformer and a potential transformer.
- The values from ADC are 10 bit so after converting them to 8 bit, I have displayed them on LCD.
- You can find complete project here Display ADC value on LCD using PIC Microcontroller.
3. Password Protection using PIC Microcontroller
- Password Protection is again a very useful project which can be employed in different projects.
- In this project, I have used an LCD and a keypad.
- Proteus is used for simulation while pic is microcontroller.
- In this system, I have driven a motor, if the user provides correct password.
- If the user provides wrong password, then he gets another chance to enter password.
- The simulation and code can be downloaded from the tutorial. Complete project is provided here Password Protection using PIC Microcontroller.
555 Timer based Engineering Projects
555 timer is an integrated chip used in timer and oscillator applications. It is also used for generating pulses. This IC founds applications in creating time delays. You can find basics of 555 timer here What is 555 Timer? I have written tutorials on 555 timer including different projects which you can access here 555 Timer projects. I am going to mention some of them in this article.
1. Sequential LED Flashing Project with 555 Timer
- This is basic project in which I have made LEDs blink in a manner, such as ascending order or descending order.
- Using the same technique you can create patterns of your own choice.
- In this project I have used a shift register 4017. This 4017 is Serial In parallel out register.
- The clock pulse needed by shift register is provided by 555 timer.
- I have provided all the details of the work here Sequential LED Flashing Project with 555 Timer.
2. Relay Control with 555 Timer
- Relay control using 555 timer is an advanced level project. I have simulated it on Proteus ISIS.
- Relays are used for automatic switching operations. In this project I have used a mechanical switch to control relay.
- You can watch a short video of the simulation in this tutorial. The link to follow is Relay Control with 555 Timer.
3. Capacitive Touch Sensor with 555 Timer
- In this tutorial I have discussed how you can use a capacitive touch sensor with 555 timer.
- Capacitive touch sensing technology is used in capacitive coupling. Other applications include mobile phones, audio players, tablet computers etc.
- Other than capacitive touch sensor, I have used an NPN transistor and an LED with 555 Timer.
MATLAB Projects
Now I am going to tell you about the projects I have made on Matlab. Matlab is very important tool for engineers which is very easy to learn. It is basically used for solving complex mathematics problems. You can work with matrices in this software. Other than that, you can use this software for simulation purposes. I am mentioning some of the projects here but you can find all of them following MATLAB Projects.
1. Speech Recognition using Correlation
- Speech recognition is used in a lot of different projects. These projects can be security systems or automation projects.
- In this project, I have used technique of cross correlation for speech recognition in Matlab.
- The main idea is to find similarity between the signal stored in our database and the testing signal by comparing the two.
- I have used nine audio files in this project. You can download these files and code from here Speech Recognition using Correlation.
2. Analysis of Sinusoidal PWM of AC Signal
- This project is a Simulink based project. Simulink is the simulation tool in Matlab.
- In this tutorial, I have shared the analysis if Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation of AC signals.
- I have added all the details of this project and explained every bit of code in this tutorial. You can find this project here Analysis of Sinusoidal PWM of AC Signal.
3. Detect Circles in Images Using MATLAB
- Matlab is very useful software when it comes to image processing. You can do all type of image processing on Matlab.
- This is a very basic project and quite easy one in which I have detected circles in an image.
- I have used an image for the said purpose and then applied imfindcircles command to it.
- I have posted the code and rest of the working here Detect Circles in Images Using MATLAB.
So these were some of the projects that could be very helpful for you. Moreover you can take a look on my PLC related projects here PLC Projects. Also if you are working on LabVIEW then you must take a look on my tutorial on LabView projects. I hope you will enjoy reading these articles and will them a try.
Modified Sine Wave Design With Code
Hello guys, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, I am gonna give you a detailed introduction of Modified Sine Wave Inverter with code. In this inverter series, I have first explained the
Basics of Inverters with Topology in which we have seen the Introductionof inverter and its different types. After that, we have discussed the
Major Components of Inverter which are essential for its designing. Now in today's post, I am gonna explain the modified sine wave inverter. I have used AVR microcontroller in this project. Before starting on modified sine wave inverter, you should also read this
Pure Sine Wave Inverter. I tried my best to keep it simple but still if you guys got stuck at any point ask in comments and I will remove your query.
Modified Sine Wave Inverter
- Modified sine wave inverter gives an output which is intermediate between the square wave and pure sine wave.
- Its actually a sine wave, which has a lot of steps.
- Let's have a look at the below figure:
- In the above figure, the red wave is a pure sine wave and the green signal is a square signal but the blue one is in between and its called modified sine wave.
- Here's a modified sine wave in MATLAB, I have designed it for another project but it will clear the idea How Modified Sine wave looks.
- Modified sine wave has much lower efficiency than the pure sine wave.
- The circuit diagram of a modified sine wave inverter is shown below:
Explanation.
- For a modified sine wave inverter we need two inverted square waves signal to switch the MOSFETs. Two generate these signals we use HEF4047 multi-vibrator IC.
- We use it in a-stable mode. It gives a buffered output so there is no need for impedance matching between TTL based ICs and CMOS based ICs.
- In a-stable mode it generates square wave of exactly 50% duty cycle at its pin 10 and gives its inverted signal on pin 11.
- It also generates frequency double to that of pin 10 at pin 13. It can be done by using 0.2µF capacitor and a 7.6KO resistor as mentioned in its datasheet to generate frequency of 500Hz at pin 13.
- From pin 13 we give a signal to HCF4017 IC as a clock. HCF 4017 is a decade counter with 12 outputs. It is used to generate a 50Hz signal with controlled delay at both positive and negative edge. Pins 1, 5, 6, 9 and pins 2, 4, 7 are used as output.
- All other outputs are grounded as CMOS ICs are very sensitive and even a small stray signal can burn them out.
- The output of HCF4047 is about 1v, which cannot be used to drive MOSFETs so the signal is amplified by using BC-547 as an amplifier (connected in common emitter biased configuration.
- This signal is again amplified and inverted. The signal obtained is a controlled PWM which we now give at the MOSFET gates.
- The block diagram of the modified sine wave inverter module is given below:
Working
- We gave a PWM signal to the pair of MOSFET connected in a push pull configuration.
- When M1 MOSFET is turned on by a high input (Q), the M2 MOSFET turns off at that time because on its input we had given an inverted signal (Q ) with some delay.
- This delay is used so that one of the MOSFETs gets time to turn off before second one turns on.
- In this mode, the current flows from source to MOSFET M1 as shown in figure.
- When Q1 goes low Q becomes high and M2 turns on, resulting in a current flowing from source as shown in diagram by I2.
- Thus, we get a bipolar high voltage output at the transformers secondary.
- The 22kO resistor from Gate to the source as shown in the diagram is important because when the input signal goes to zero, the MOSFETs may not completely turn off because of the capacitance between gate and source so this resistance makes sure that signal is fully grounded.
- The threshold voltage to turn on a MOSFET is approximately 4V. We are driving MOSFETs with 12v signal so that MOSFETs is completely turned on otherwise it will result in power dissipation.
Results
FIGURE 4 : Delayed inverted output
Problems
- In power inverter, shoot through current is a major problem and needs to be solved.
- It is a short circuit current, and as described in the previous topic, occurs when both MOSFETs are on. This happens for a very short time i.e. for some Nano-seconds.
- But eventually it results in a short circuit current, which causes loading and thus it may damage the MOSFETs.
- This situation can be avoided by introducing a dead time between the two signals both at rise and fall edge.
- If the dead time is increased too much, the output voltages drop because MOSFETs are turned ON for a very short time.
- Finally impedance matching is an important factor.
- Transformers output impedance (Secondary) should be low so that minimum voltage drop occurs when we connect any load to with it.
So, that was all about Modified Sine Wave Inverter Design. I hope you will like it. Have a good day !!! :)